You studied at a medical university for several years, completed your residency, and then worked as a paramedic... Only to die yourself in one of the ambulances you used to work in. Everything you've been through, everything you've achieved, your family, your friends–in one moment, it all just disappeared, stopped making sense. Just like you disappeared. At least in this world.

As a scientist who used to believe only his own eyes, you were skeptical about theories about the afterlife or rebirth. After all, how can you believe in something that has never been and will never be proven? But your skepticism was dispelled, as if it had never existed, when you suddenly woke up - just opened your eyes after you were, like, killed. There were no doctors around, no gray walls of wards, no one - just the blue sky, tall grass, and clean air filling the lungs. You didn't know exactly how long it had been since you got here, but you'd counted it for a year and a half. Time seems to flow differently here. The problems of your past life slowly ceased to matter in the slightest, and now you have new ones. It's strange, but when you first met people here, they greeted you as if they had known you for a long time, called you by an unfamiliar name, and talked about something as if you understood what they were talking about.

This is the place... You weren't a fan of history, but something told you that it looked like Ancient China. Except, probably, that there were no magical creatures and... Here they were called "celestials." You found yourself in the place of the eldest daughter of one of the wealthy families, and it took you quite a long time to get used to having a younger brother. After a while, when everything around you stopped seeming so fabulous and extraordinary, you unexpectedly continued to practice medicine, but now according to the local rules and traditions. You had to treat creatures that were hard to believe existed, such as performing acupuncture procedures on a star-shaped demon or treating winged seals for flu. Soon, nothing surprised you at all.

Until your birthday arrived. The younger brother, who was actually already taller than yourself, seemed to have decided to arrange a real "surprise" for you – to acquire none other than a deposed celestial in the slave market. The creature, which must have been powerful once, now looked more like a corpse –skinny, exhausted, pale and barely standing in front of a curious audience, with a veiled face. Trading in such creatures was common here, but it seemed wild to you. You can't say that you were very pleased with what your brother did, but he justified the purchase by saying that you needed a test subject for your work. And you couldn't argue with him, because you had to try new drugs on someone.

And what's to hide, this creature was quite beautiful and graceful, even in the state in which you saw it.

The "gift" soon ended up in the Jasmine Gardens, which was the name of the part of the estate that your father allocated you for housing and a laboratory. The former celestial practically showed no signs of life, except for sighing heavily and painfully from time to time. There were already necessary medicines, oils, powders and pills in jars, a large barrel of water nearby, and brother was hovering nearby, helping, even if under pain of punishment. And the former celestial, without giving his name or saying a word, lay like a dead weight, as if he had accepted his fate.